The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    MrSmith1's picture

    Follow the Drinking Gourd

    By MrSmith1 on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 4:36pm |

    "This country was founded on compromise. I couldn't go through the front door of this country's founding. And you know if we were really thinking about ideal positions, we wouldn't have a Union.

    And so, my job is to make sure that we have a North Star out there - what is helping the American people live out of their lives? You know what is giving them more opportunity, what is growing the economy, what is making us more competitive. And at any given juncture there're gonna be times where my preferred option, what I'm absolutely positive is right, I can't get done. And so then my question is, does it make sense for me to tack a little bit this way, or tack a little bit that way, because I'm keeping my eye on the long term, and the long fight, not my day to day news cycle, but where am I going over the long term?

    And I don't think there's a single Democrat out there, who if they looked at where we started when I came into office and look at where we are now, would say that somehow we have not moved in the direction that I promised. Take a tally, look at what I promised during the campaign. There's not a single thing that I said that I would do that I have not either done or tried to do. And if I have not gotten it done yet, I'm still trying to do it.

    And so, to my Democratic friends, what I'd suggest is, let's make sure that we understand this is a long game, this is not a short game."

    Before and during the Civil War, the Underground Railroad operated in Elmira, NY, where some of my ancestors lived.  It was usually the last stop, where runaway slaves could hop into a boxcar and ride the train to Canada and freedom.  One of the songs of the era told runaway slaves who might not always know their way to "Follow the Drinking Gourd", a reference to following the North Star.  Today, in his press conference President Obama tried to reassure us worried Dems that his job was to make sure there was a North Star for us to follow to get us where we want to go, and that although there is treachery and damnable bounty hunters looking to return us to the fiscal policies of the Far Right, he has, worked hard to make sure there is, at least, a guiding light for us to follow and later expand upon.  What do you think?  To me, this answer to a reporter's question was the most passionate response I've seen from him since before the 2008 election, but comes a bit late in the game. I wanted to see this kind of passion not as expression of his anger and/or frustration at his own supporters, but as a response to the Repugs.

    Comments

    I hope he understands that the number of people he can count as "my Democratic friends" is rapidly shrinking and deservedly so.  I pray to God the Congressional Democrats have the balls to scuttle this rotten deal he has agreed to.


    by oleeb on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 4:57pm

    I got a dollar says they don't. (Though I kinda wish they would,)


    by MrSmith1 on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 6:06pm

    Take a tally, look at what I promised during the campaign. There's not a single thing that I said that I would do that I have not either done or tried to do.

    Why doesn't he get this?  The world we live in now is not the world in which he conducted his presidential campaign.  It is not enough just to stick to the agenda he ran on.

    Obama wants us to pretend the Great Recession never happened.

    He wants us to pretend that the captains of American finance were not caught red-handed running a massive Ponzi scheme that wrecked the American economy.

    He wants us to pretend that the global crediters and financiers whose confidence he is so eager to earn daily did not vaporize much of the retirement wealth of America.

    He wants us to pretend that 10% of our countrymen are not unemployed, and that a catastrophic number like that does not require emergency measures and a radically changed course from the one that looked reasonable in early 2008.

    He wants us to pretend that the world's creditors are not currently lining up in lockstep to stick all the punishment for bad loans on the people who borrowed, while the people who lended avoid all responsibility.

    He wants us to pretend that American capitalism, as it is currently structured, has not been unmasked as a sick and exploitive and repulsively unequal system.

    He wants us to bargain with Republicans for crumbs for the jobless, and when they trade us those crumbs in exchange for massive handouts to the obscenely wealthy, he wants us to thank our partners in bipartisanship for the favor.

    If Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and FDR had done nothing, would we say it was a good excuse if FDR responded, "I've done or tried to do everything I ran on?"   Isn't it obvious that there is a whole new world full of massive social-economic problems and structural systemic failures that needs to be addressed.

    The American poor and middle class are under constant attack from the grotesquely wealthy, plundering owners of our society and the global financial system.   I want Obama to go to war with them, not bitch about the hand he was dealt, and not whine about why it can't be 2007 all over again.

    Obama needs to fire his domestic and economic policy and generals, and hire a whole new batch.  Then he needs to look himself in the mirror, decide which side he's on, and get his war on.

    You don't get to pick the historical hand you are dealt.

    10% unemployment - the result of a recession directly caused by the highest paid members of our society - and the jobless are being forced to beg for the cash to keep their lives and families patched together while most of the rest of us have to trade tax goodies for the plutocrats in exchange for the handouts.  And the bonuses for Wall Street continue???!!!!!   Any progressive leader worth his salt should be able to turn this spectacle into a public outrage.  The leaders of the Republican Party should be called out as the pathetic, corrupt, thieving imbeciles they are and should be dragged into the public square to be horsewhipped.


    by Dan Kervick on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 5:23pm

    Well put, yet when Obama looks in the mirror, he sees a hero and not a wimpass GOP puppet, who doesn't know or care to know how to be Democratic President.


    by NCD on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 5:35pm

    Talk about always fighting the last war. You make some good points. Obama is living in the world of his past success, and not understanding how much the dynamic has changed and deteriorated.  He's trying to fix the world of November 2008, not the world of December 2010. 


    by MrSmith1 on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 6:01pm

    Yup yup yup.


    by quinn esq on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 7:12pm

    I still would lay this entire mess on the doorsteps of the dem senators over the last two years. They had the power to just destroy the repub bloc.

    Protocols, shite!!!

    This is a great essay by the way. The North Star.


    by Richard Day on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 5:46pm

    Yup. I mean, once they realized the Repugs were going to do nothing but obstruct, why the f*ck didn't they change protocol and pass everything through reconciliation? I doubt I'll ever understand the reasoning.


    by MrSmith1 on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 6:04pm

    Follow the money.


    by AmiBlue on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 8:17pm

    The team Obama brought to the White House has restored power to the GOP. He has been their guardian angel since taking office.

    How were the Dem senators supposed to "just destroy the Repub bloc" with Obama giving a press conference every week calling on the senate to make sure to include the GOP and saying he wanted to be sure legislative output was "bipartisan" more than anything?

    Are you saying that the Dem senators should have actively defied Obama and gone to war against both the GOP and the White House? Otherwise, I'm curious how you imagine they'd have pulled off the imagined destruction when our general had specifically and repeatedly issued demands not to fight. Obama destroyed any strength his caucus had to act.

     


    by kgb999 on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 7:01pm

    I love this line of argument.  Yes, Nelson, Lieberman, Lincoln, et al. would have voted like Bernie Sanders, if only Obama hadn't stressed bipartisnaship in a few press conferences.  It would have been progressive ponies for everyone, if only Obama had pounded the bully pulpit a little harder.

    "Obama destroyed any strength his caucus had to act."  You don't actually believe this, do you?  Are you familiar with the voting records of the more conservative Dem Senators?  What universe are you living in where you think these utterly corrupt DINOs from states that voted for a senile old man and a MILFY-retarded person could be swayed by appeals to party unity and the welfare of average americans?  

     


    by brewmn on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 10:54pm

    First, you are totally ignoring the real topic here. The question is why senate Democrats didn't "destroy the republican bloc" not why didn't Nelson, Lieberman or Lincoln vote this way or that way. You don't agree that had the Senate Democratic leadership moved to destroy the GOP and bury their smoldering remains under the rotunda - instead of playing the let's just try to get along game as they did - it would have been in direct opposition to what Obama was publicly calling for during the time period Dick is referring to? The Senate leadership did not have the option of being more aggressive with the GOP without directly opposing Obama and essentially having a civil war. That was my point, and I think it's pretty solid.

    As to Obama destroying his caucus' ability to act, while certainly more debatable, this is unquestionably a fact in my mind. Are you familiar with the Senate leadership structure and the concept of whipping? That is far more germane to the topic than the voting records of a few senators. How do you imagine the Senate power structure can operate if the DNC is handing out deals through the White House that totally bypass the leadership? It can't. The caucus is going to tell the leadership to piss-off and try to get their own deals through the White House. And that's just what happened. Again, it is not possible for the Senate leadership to change this dynamic without directly challenging Obama. As a result, to whatever extent the caucus was managed/handled over the last two years, it has been done through the White House bypassing the traditional leadership structure - most notably in the Senate. It's a simple fact of legislative logistic reality.

    Now, riddle me this ... Obama just worked out a legislative deal on taxation by holding direct negotiations between the White House the Senate minority leader. Neither Reid nor Pelosi were involved in these negotiations. Are you genuinely proposing that this isn't bypassing his entire caucus and hamstringing them from doing anything more aggressive than what he's hammered out unilaterally? Doesn't this force anyone within his caucus to either follow his lead or go to direct war with the President? That is the exact same triangulating dynamic the man has been fostering since he took office.


    by kgb999 on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 5:21am

    "You don't agree that had the Senate Democratic leadership moved to destroy the GOP and bury their smoldering remains under the rotunda - instead of playing the let's just try to get along game as they did - it would have been in direct opposition to what Obama was publicly calling for during the time period Dick is referring to? The Senate leadership did not have the option of being more aggressive with the GOP without directly opposing Obama and essentially having a civil war."

    I don't think civil war is what would have happened at all.  I think Obama would have been happy to let the Senate Democrats pass whatever they could, and, if things got ugly, he could wring his hands over the lack of comity in the Congress and further burnish his post-partisan bona fides.  But I hope you are not arguing that he would have, for example, vetoed the public option in the health care bill simply because it didn't have any Republican votes?  Because, if you'll remember, every significant bill he's signed has been passed without a single Republican vote.  He's been negotiating in public with Republicans but in private with corporate-owned conservative Democrats for his entire term to date.

    I just think you misread the entire dynamic here.  The way I've read the last two years, Obama has been going to the Senate via backchannels to find out what can get passed prior to taking a public position on any policy details.  And this tax deal, to me, is an exception that proves that rule.  The Congress fucked this deal up, not once, but twice.  First, all reports indicate that Obama wanted a vote before the midterms, and the congressional leaders decided instead to delay and  protect vulnerable Democrats from a tax vote right before the election; second, the Senate had a vote on a tax bill this weekend.  And it failed, primarily because they couldn't get the full caucus of Dems on board.

    James Fallows had a piece in a recent Atlantic about how the world sees America.  And most of the people he talked though America was still the strongest, freest country in the world, and worthy of emulation in almost every respect.  The one aspect of our political culture they would not wish to emulate is our corrupt and completely dysfunctional Senate.      

     


    by brewmn on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 10:00am

    I wanted to see this kind of passion not as expression of his anger and/or frustration at his own supporters, but as a response to the Repugs.

    Pretty much nails it. Sometimes Obama feels like a guy who makes up for not being able to get ahead at the office by going home and beating his wife and kids.


    by kgb999 on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 6:47pm

    I'm scratching my head over this analogy, KGB.  My guess is you're saying he abuses the Left?


    by LisB on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 7:32pm

    I'm not sure what kgb means.  But that's exactly the way I see it.  Personally, I'm sick of being mocked and Sister Souljahed by triangulating Democratic centrists.

    If Obama could just do anything to communicate to the left, "Look guys, I'm on your side and I feel your pain.  But Washington has a fucking gun to my head," then it would be different.   But he never misses an opportunity to make points by giving us the back of his hand.


    by Dan Kervick on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 8:16pm

    He consistently abuses progressives, at the very least, and he also abuses progressive ideas and theories, which is really bad for Democrats long-term.  He and his team choose neo-Liberal economic policies and pretend they're progressive, and want us to eat all his policy plans like ACA designed and implemented by Mitt Romney in MA.  And he bashes us for frittering away even the possiblilty of a single-payer plan, then talking out of both sides of his mouth about supporting a public option. And has the nerve to blame any of us for feeling betrayed.

    I'm just amazed that he has been able to hold so much of 'his' base hostage long enough to still poll at 46-47% favorability ratings.

    He and Rahm have mocked the Left (or Left blogoshere), called us names, left any progressives out of his White House, or sold the ones he did appoint down the river as soon as someone had a bit of criticism about them.

    The list could go on and on.  If you don't feel dissed by him, maybe you aren't the Left he's talking about.


    by we are stardust on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 9:45pm

    Please leave the litmus test on my personal politics out of it.  Otherwise, I appreciate your comment and can understand the frustration.  You aired it very well.  But you didn't have to include that last sentence.

     


    by LisB on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 9:59pm

    The last sentence wasn't a litmus test; I think it's completely reasonable.  Many Dems aren't particularly Left, though we keep having those discussions, and conclusions on terms aren't quite possible.  I'm paraphrasing the old adage: if you have the pain, you have the problem.  If I (or other progressives or whomever) give the President or other Dems pain, they will see me (us) as a problem, especially if the President has no intention of paying attention to, or enacting policies, that I (we) are convinced are the best for the country. 

    You've indicated your support for him for long enough that I am guessing he isn't causing you pain, and I think you've told us your personal take on poltics for a long time now.  That's all.


    by we are stardust on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 10:13pm

    Thanks, I appreciate your quick response/explanation.  I am afraid I took your last sentence as a barbed criticism, when you did not mean for it to be so.  For misjudging your remark, I apologize.  Thanks for clarifying that.

    I'm a bit overly sensitive.  I'm working on it, though.  ;)

     


    by LisB on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 10:19pm

    It's fine; I also realize I might have said 'if your politics weren't pained', LOL!


    by we are stardust on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 10:30pm

    "I'm just amazed that he has been able to hold so much of 'his' base hostage long enough to still poll at 46-47% favorability ratings."

    Sadly, this just shows how small his base (as you would define it) really is.


    by brewmn on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 10:03am

    That hits the nail on the head alright.

    Obama is frankly the type of guy who, as an ambitious, conniving upwardly mobile Ivy League student, would talk the talk about filing a grievance about some crappy professor, then when complaints were made which he would have some excuse for not signing, squeal on his fellow students and abandon them as being unreasonable, while ass kissing the prof to get his A while others get screwed.

    He is a self promoting conceited guy, a doublecrossing liar, a hero in his own mind.


    by NCD on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 8:48pm

    ...and the analogies just keep going...

    by LisB on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 8:50pm

    Do you actually have a criticism of the analogies Lis?


    by Dan Kervick on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 9:26pm

    Not really, Dan.  Just tired of them, but that's me.  Your comment, however, stands out (to me) and I can understand it and sympathize with it. 


    by LisB on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 9:35pm

    I have a criticism of the analogies.  They're immature, totally subjective hogwash, and utterly useless. 


    by anna am on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 10:30pm

    It seems to me the purpose analogies serve is for the people making them; enabling them to get their heads around their extreme disappointment.  Consider analogies as catharsis, and don't make more of them than that.  Y'see, there's a certain awkward mental U-turn some people need to make when they find a man they've been arguing for and defending over two years has so blatantly let them down. I mean, what would you have people do who feel betrayed, rejected and pilloried by a man they thought was on their side?  Act 'responsibly,' and suck up their profound disappointment and stick their chins out and nobly walk with their heads held high into the sunset without any show of emotion?  Not an easy thing to do.  Maybe some analogies are immature, but useless?  Not to the people making them, and that is what this forum is for, isn't it? Expressing our opinions and getting out our frustrations through the written word.


    by MrSmith1 on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 11:15pm

    The comment at hand was a cheap ugly-minded shot, and made up out of whole cloth.  And if it's between that kind of acting out and some nobility of spirit, I'd take the latter anyday.  But I don't see the need for nobility either, I think you're getting a bit high-falutin' there in that either/or you set up.  For my part, a comment that was a little more reality based, and a little less churlish, would do just fine.  

     


    by anna am on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 1:11am

    And you know all of this, how, exactly?

    You are frankly the type of person who will create a whole character out of various news items, filter them all through your rather warped sensibility, declare them fact, and rest on your self-awarded laurels for insight into the minds and motivations of others.

    See how easy that was? 

     


    by brewmn on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 12:22am

    Well played, Brewmn.

     


    by LisB on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 12:32am

    Seconded.


    by anna am on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 12:55am

    I didn't think I was expressing anything other than an opinion. I thought that's what we're all doing here. Why do you assume them to be anything more than that?


    by MrSmith1 on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 12:50am

    Brew was responding to NCD, not you. 


    by anna am on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 12:54am

    Oh. Okay, give me a second to get out of the line of fire.


    by MrSmith1 on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 1:24am

    With this software, you almost need a ruler at hand to track the left-hand margins to suss out who is commenting to whom.  'Line of fire'...'shooting at me'...ay yi yi!  It's war?   ;o)


    by we are stardust on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 7:20am

    Oh hell. I thought he was shooting at me.


    by kgb999 on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 5:45am

    Ha. I can't figure out how to add "in reply to" info, but if anyone has a suggestion for changing the formatting to make it easier to follow, I'm open to ideas.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 7:51am

    Meanwhile, I have extra rulers if you need one.   ;o)  (By the way, you're pretty damned good with all this tech stuff, IMO.)  Your new Redo button is way cool.  Do you know why the default font is the tiny one?


    by we are stardust on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 8:02am

    Do you mean in the edit mode or in display mode? The default font when you type gets displayed as the standard site font. Sometimes when people paste content from another editor like Word, the style gets set to another font, which can be a small font.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 11:15am

    Uh-oh.  Like this: I start typing in the comment box and it's this size unless I change the font to 3-pt.  Same for composing blogs.  Now Obey says in his Firefox, in order for the rest of us NOT to need magnifying glasses or fiddle with the page font size, His words are ginormous.  My firefox doesn't do that.  Real head-scratcher.  When you enter a comment, what size is the type?


    by we are stardust on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 11:27am

    I changed the edit box font to be the same as the site font. Obey, if you read this, please contact me if you're still having trouble with ginormous words.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 12:11pm

    Wow; appreciated, Genghis.  You're a scholar and a gentleman, and not a bad techhie, to boot. Tongue out


    by we are stardust on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 12:27pm

    Maybe just let all the comments be posted by chronological order, that way people can at least follow the flow of the discussion.


    by MrSmith1 on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 10:08am

    When sites where that happens, you end up not having dialogue, just a line of one-off comments.  IMO, it's pretty unsatisfactory except for people who sit at their computers all day watching a thread.  Maybe if the spaces between comments were reduced we'd be able to see the indents more clearly?  Not sure.


    by we are stardust on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 10:25am

    How about these new lines? Better?

    PS I agree, chronological is no good for discussions.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 11:48am

    Oh, good grief; the line I typed above in tiny font came out 12-pt when it published.  The lines are very nice lines, Genghis, but don't help with the indent-display-who's-commenting-to-whom problem.  No big deal for me; I don't usually care who answers me!  Cool  It's those warring who care, maybe?  And font size?  It may be an existential question in the end...er....


    by we are stardust on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 12:02pm

    Here's an idea I just dreamed up, but it requires some web-foo: have the background of each comment be a function of its depth. You could choose just five different (light) background colors and use modulo arithmetic to vary them (such that a comment at depth 6 has the same color as a comment at depth 1). This would be in addition to, and not as a replacement to, the current indentation formatting.


    by Atheist (not verified) on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 10:24am

    Ingenious yet stupid at the same time


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 11:50am

    ROTFLMAO!!!


    by we are stardust on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 11:57am

    Y'all are just missing the whole "vision thing".


    by Atheist (not verified) on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 12:01pm

    So are you saying you like the idea, Genghis, or what?

    Actually, when people were talking about lining up rulers to the screen, I recalled using some program (can't remember which) that had a grabbable, movable red line near the left-hand side of the page, which you could pull to any point in order to line things up (like pix or text boxes). Seems to me that feature shouldn't be too hard to add to dagblog display pages. The line could even snap to grid, removing any chance of reader confusion. In long, involved, multi-party discussions (and that's  dagblog's specialty), that would actually help sort out participants' replies.

    Just a suggestion.


    by acanuck on Sat, 12/11/2010 - 2:33pm

    Seems to me that feature shouldn't be too hard to add to dagblog display pages.

    Ha. Easy for you to say. The secret to dagblog's cutting edge technology is that I hardly code anything. I do almost everything by snapping together third-party drupal modules. So if you can find a drupal module to do that, I'm all for it, but I don't think they've got it.

    Welcome back, btw.


    by Michael Wolraich on Sat, 12/11/2010 - 3:17pm

    Ah you make me remember that TPMCafe had this very same problem when they switched from Scoop to Drupal, I believe it was worse then--the Drupal they used had no indents at all, just left margin in line. Everyone was complaining about the switch, Andrew Golis (now @ Yahoo) as his first assignment was to take care of the Cafe audience software complaints and put back in features they had with Scoop that they wanted in the new Drupal, only then he would get to work on the content. Maybe he remembers what he had done to get the features it eventually had (especially because there was a lot of bitchin' and Marshall cared a lot more about the Cafe back then.)


    by artappraiser on Sat, 12/11/2010 - 8:46pm

    Not all of us can be like you old-school Obama golf buddies. So, indeed. That is precisely the only mechanism by which ANY of us can derive any opinion whatsoever about politicians or events that we don't have direct personal interactive experience with. Probing the facts that we are able to acquire, weighing them against life experience and trying to divine some sort of reason from them is a function of intellectual curiosity ... you likely can't relate.

    However. Most people with basic skills of language understand that a comment starting with the qualifier "sometimes Obama feels like" can not be logically be characterized as declaring something a fact.  As such, so your response just makes me question if you are actually illiterate ... or just horribly lazy.

     

    Sometimes Obama feels

    by kgb999 on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 5:43am

    If this is a reply to me, I would ask you where "sometimes Obama feels like" appears in the comment to which I responded.  So, careful reading is apparently not your strong suit either.

    And any reasonably facile mind would recognize that their impressions of a situation are necessarily an incomplete picture of that situation, and would, if alternate explanations for, say, an individual's actions are plausible, at least admit to some doubt.  But, the Obama-bashers on the the left gave up on admitting to alternate explanations or some doubt around April 2009 in favor of knee-jerk poutrage and exercises in mind reading.


    by brewmn on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 10:12am

    This is pretty weak-ass fighting, so if all of you are gonna go on and ON about "analogies" and shit like that, well, I'm just gonna tell you to go the fuck home. 

    But. If you wanna get serious, and call each other down, then the rest of us might take the time to read your positions, consider them thoroughly, and then weigh in, calling one or the other of you total assholes.


    by quinn esq on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 10:47am

    Here's the full video of that answer:

    http://www.necn.com/12/07/10/Obama-My-job-is-to-make-sure-we-have-Nor/landing_politics.html?blockID=368371&feedID=4212

    I wanted to see this kind of passion not as expression of his anger

    One of his main selling points was that he doesn't do anger, remember?

    http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/obama-plays-it-cool/866342/

    What do you think?

    I was grateful that he's finally decided to do some straight talk in public, right from his own lips and not from representatives, about where he stands. I did like the following, it makes it very clear (as he has done many times before) that he sees compromise as a core principle:

    This country was founded on compromise. I couldn't go through the front door of this country's founding. And you know if we were really thinking about ideal positions, we wouldn't have a Union.

    His statement also inspires me to say something more general.

    I don't understand those who expect a president to represent them  individually and do what they think best, and get angry when he/she doesn't instead of trying to represent the whole country. But I do expect a president to be clear about where he's at and what he's trying to do so I can seek knowledge to judge how that's going to play out and figure out how best it is for me to proceed. I don't understand people who think they can control everything via politics, that if they just had "their people" in charge, everything would go their way. That's very unrealistic. It's a democracy but still it's only one man, one vote, and when it comes down to it, you can't really find two people who agree on everything. You can, however, make wise life plans and choices if your leaders are straight with you about what they are doing and you seek out knowledge to understand what that will mean. If everything's covert or vague or just suggested but not spoken by the leader in order to fool as many people as possible into thinking he agrees with as many as possible, for political benefit, that's cowardly and not helpful at all to me, myself and I. Then I have to rely on leaks and rumors to figure out what's really going on.


    by artappraiser on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 11:43pm

    P.S. As to the issue involved, I think destor's take is as good as any:

    http://dagblog.com/reader-blogs/obamas-victories-budget-7656

    and much of the blogophere ranting and raving strikes me as being in denial of reality, a refusal to acknowledge the reality that we will have a Republican House in a few weeks time.


    by artappraiser on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 12:11am

    *runs in*

    *kisses ArtApp on the cheek*

    I love these two comments.  Thank you.

    *runs out*


    by LisB on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 12:12am

     "I was grateful that he's finally decided to do some straight talk in public, right from his own lips and not from representatives, about where he stands." 

    No argument from me on that. Which is why I was of two minds about what he said. I read Obama's statement and felt excited that he was finally speaking passionately and giving some honest, straight talk. The kind of detailed speaking on issues is what I've been praying he would give us for two years.  If he'd spoken with that same clarity and passion over the last two years, we might have had a different outcome in the midterm elections. And yes, I understand he's dealing with a tough reality and yes, I know he's committed to the art of compromise.  But when there is so much insanity on the Right, it's hard to accept the notion that his focus continues to be exclusively set on batting down the Left and not in some way begin to take it personally. 


    by MrSmith1 on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 1:18am

    I'm going to try, one more time, to explain why I back Obama so much - even now.  Here goes.

    *deep breath*

    After GW Bush, if we had had a totally left-leaning liberal take office, even the Dems in Congress would've balked over some of the ideas and plans.  Obama is trying to move center, from right.  He's still right of the Dems, obviously (and it took me a long time, folks, to own up to this fact) but he's more center than the Republicans.  Right?

    So in trying to just move to the center, he's getting us somewhere.  And look at the fight he's getting from the Right in doing so.  Look at what he's up against.  Seriously, look at it.  He's got death threats galore, more than any other President has had to deal with.  He's got militia men, crazy uni-bomber types, people flying their own airplanes into tax offices, shooting up security guards at museums, plots to kill cops and then bomb the cop funerals.....and that's what we know of so far.  Just trying to move this country CENTER, while being black, he's got to deal with this crazyness. 

    And then he's got crazy Congress.  Lieberman, for one.  Nelson, for another.  Dems who aren't Dems at heart and Indies who aren't really Indies.  And then the crazy Right in congress, like Bachmann.  And then he's got the Birthers, and crazy Orlie, and Hawaii (that tropical place that seems so exotic to clean little Cokie) and the old school good ole Southern boys who want to lynch him just for fun except they can't, because he's President but golly if he weren't, what they'd love to....

    And the press.  And Faux News.  And Fire Dog Lake, and the Independents, and the far left and the middling left.....

    He's got all that.  On top of taking on the hardest job in the world. 

    Is he making the progress you all want him to make?  No.  But he's trying his best to keep things moving towards progress.  And no one on the left will even give him the breathing room to try.

    THAT'S how I see it.  And that's why I sometimes pop in here and say so. 


    by LisB on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 1:50am

    OMG, I'm pulling an Art App move.  I'm elaborating on my own comment.  Oh well.

    Remember my Thanksgiving dinner parable?  Obama was the guy sitting down at the table with his beloved sweetheart's family for the first time....learning that all her elderly relatives were die-hard Repubs.

    I asked whether he should create a scene, make a huge statement there at the holiday dinner table, or just try to be polite.  Remember?

    And somebody gave me a good answer.  They said he should try to make his points while still being polite and asking for someone to please hand him the mashed potatoes. 

    I believe in my heart that Obama is trying to show all of us that there IS a middle ground.  A middle path.  A MIDDLE ANYTHING.

    We can't take the ship all the way to the left -- we'll leave half the country behind.  We can't let it go further right, and so far, quite frankly, I don't think he has.  Not when I'm seeing Republicans balk at his "socialism", anyway.  So he's taking us to the middle.  He's taking the ENTIRE country to the middle.  Do you all think that's easy?  Really???? 

    All your arguments against him are based on the fact that he's not following the progressive, liberal left agenda.  Well.....why in hell should he?  Who says the liberal left owns the US?  We don't.  We only own half of it. 

    That's my point.  Hopefully I got it across this time.

     


    by LisB on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 2:31am

    I understand your point, LisB, and I think that the mashed potatoes line was mine.  But it's very confusing to be rooting for a football team that's driving for the end zone, and still cheer for them when, suddenly, on fourth down and goal to go, the quarterback hands the football to the other team.  That's all I'm saying. He pivoted and left a huge group of people twisting in the wind; all the folks who were arguing the case that, for example tax cuts for millionaires is wrong and will add 700 billion to the deficit. Now they have egg on their face and the President takes credit for compromising, (which I'm not arguing. I understand he has to make deals and the fact he got the GOP to negotiate on anything is to be applauded), but I'm vexed that instead of giving us a moment to gather ourselves and figure out how to reconcile our own pivots, he didn't give us any cover, but instead turned around and made us the villains of the piece. How do we hear that without letting off some emotion? We bought what he said, then argued for it, and then when it came to crunch time, we were blamed for arguing for the very things he himself said he stood for, and, to boot, we were told we were bad people for not being more willing to compromise.  I understand being President for the whole country and having to get the best deal he could. But when you have followers you can't change that dramatically without some reconciling of arguments, (even when compromising is the exact right thing to do).

    I think, for me, the issue has more to do with how he made the Left look like spoiled children and how the Left is now being criticized for over-reacting with 'temper tantrums'.  My point is, that sometimes, in order to get one's own personal compass re-aligned, a little venting and stomping of feet is necessary. Putting your heart into a cause and finding the cause suddenly reverse field is disorienting.  Cut some slack to those of us who need to moment to find their sea legs.


    by MrSmith1 on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 8:30am

    Since when do presidents represent the "whole country"?  Obama wasn't elected by the whole country.  He was elected by a coalition of all of the left and part of the middle.

    I agree about the value of honesty, and the destructive power of secrecy.  Since Obama has now declared his contemptuous independence from the left, at least we now know where we stand.


    by Dan Kervick on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 7:20am

    I admit I am troubled by the compromises he is making in favore of a failed radical right idology.  I am also troubled by the way the general public doesn't take voting seriously and we get stuck with poor representation in our government, like the last midterm. 

    He is going to have trouble with his reelection because democrat base is very unhappy or confused.     


    by trkingmomoe on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 3:16am

    Or both.


    by LisB on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 3:17am

    This is the best debate I've ever read between Obama's supporters and critics on the left. Kudos to MrSmith for eloquently capturing the spirit of Obama's answer and to Dan K and Artappraiser for persuasively presenting the opposite poles of the discussion. But really, I'm impressed by the articulate, passionate, and reasonable comments from all participants.

    If you haven't guessed, I'm of two minds, so I'll just give you both of them.

    To the critics: The person you want to lead the country could not have won in 2008. I'm sorry, but the rest of the country leans way too far to the right these days. Maybe a closeted liberal could have snuck in by pretending to be a centrist, but Obama isn't a sneak. Moreover, the Congress you want to lead the country could not have won in 2008 either. Without all those Blue Dogs, Democrats would not have had a filibuster-proof majority, perhaps not even a majority. Until liberals recapture the sympathies of more Americans, you will be forever frustrated and ignored. The fault, dear friends, is not in our leaders but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

    To the supporters: Yes, the President serves the whole country. Yes, he has to compromise to get things done. Yes, a spirit of compromise is a noble ideal. But politicians depend on passionate constituents to get elected, and they owe a special debt to those constituents that must be honored if they hope to be supported and re-elected. That does not mean that Obama must do everything that lefties want him to do, but he has to do something to appeal to their interests--liberal appointees in key positions, a valiant uncompromising stand on a legislative priority, passionate rhetoric. Republican presidents, even wishy-washy centrists like Bush Sr., know that they have to serve red meat to the wing. Obama does not seem to understand that, and I fear that he will pay a price for it in 2012.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 9:27am

    You have captured my ambvilance very eloquently, Genghis.


    by Atheist (not verified) on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 10:15am

    Interesting take.

    I find the whole left-Obama relationship somewhat dysfunctional. He and they are always in Love-Betrayal-Recrimination mode. Which leads to a lot of heated words. Ultimately, the left needs to realize that he does not represent them, and that organizations like Democratic Alliance need to put on their big-boy pants and make their own funding decisions instead of looking to daddy to tell them what to do. And Obama needs to realize he has no claim on their loyalty. When they agree on issues, they can work together. But Obama can't wear both hats of Progressive Leader and Facilitator of the National Dialogue. The facilitator is by definition in the center, and the progressive movement cannot be in the center. Him trying to juggle those two hats is what has led the national dialogue to keep nudging rightwards. Or at least, it's one of the dynamics.

    Beyond that, I don't think he needs to throw any red meat at the left to win in '12. I don't think that matters. He can trash-talk the left to death and it won't matter. IF, that is, the economy is back on track. The only thing that matters in '12 is that unemployment is down, foreclosures are down, and growth is up.

    And I, as well as others around here, are attacking Obama from the left not because of some sense of 'entitlement' as regards his attentions, but because doing more progressive stuff - stimulus, cleaning up the banks and mortgage markets, stopping the disinflationist trend - is what will bring the economy back. It is not because he is OUR president more than anyone else's. If the dems aren't going to get killed in '12, he needs to clean up his act. Being nice to the right and being mean to the left won't mean shit either way in the next election.


    by Obey on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 12:56pm

    The only thing that matters in '12 is that unemployment is down, foreclosures are down, and growth is up.

    And as in '96, Obama and the Republicans will get credit, regardless of deservedness.


    by Atheist (not verified) on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 1:11pm

    The economy certainly matters more than anything else, but that doesn't mean that the Democratic base doesn't matter. If liberal voters stay home or vote for third party candidates, it can influence elections, as Al Gore learned. It doesn't matter whether they stay home because they feel betrayed or because they do not feel that Obama represents their interests; the point is that he needs their votes.

    So he really does have to wear both hats. He has to compromise and work with the other side, but he also has to give'em hell sometimes. I think that Reagan was pretty good at that. He had to work with Democrats in order to accomplish anything, but he nonetheless earned the eternal adoration of the Republican base for taking strong stands on causes they believed in.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 2:09pm

    Obey, great comments. I do think the Tea Party will provide Obama ample opportunity to throw the base some red meat.


    by Oxy Mora on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 6:38pm

    I doubt that this wrecked economy of ours is going to recover in the next two years.  And, if unemployment is reduced at all, it'll be by near negligible amounts. 

    He's a one term president.  The only thing that could save him now is a war or a new terrorist event, which could be local and homegrown.  Timothy McVeigh seriously helped Clinton's stature out. 


    by anna am on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 8:32pm

    As a supporter, still, I think your point on a "valiant uncompromising stand" is a very perceptive  one. To do that seems to require more risk than his DNA allows. So I'm not counting on it even though it would make me feel better about him. 


    by Oxy Mora on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 6:59pm

    In case you missed David Kurtz's take (like I did until now,) you should check it out:

    http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/12/seminal_moment_1.php


    by artappraiser on Wed, 12/08/2010 - 9:09pm